Slowly, she turned her head back.
Her eyes focused on Heena's face.
"How dare you," Heena said.
Not loud. Conversational, almost. Precise as a surgical tool.
Something moved behind Seraphina's eyes — the blankness giving way to something hotter and more familiar, color rising in her face beyond the handprint, real anger threading up through the humiliation, something that had lived in her a long time and didn't like being touched. Her lips parted. Her chin lifted. She drew breath to speak—
'CRACK.'
The second slap hit the other cheek and knocked her head the other way, faster and harder, and when the echo died, the room was more silent than it had been before.
Heena regarded her steadily. Her expression had not changed.
